How Paranoid Do You Have To Be To Think You Need a Gun in the Shower?

There are an estimated 270 million guns in America. That’s a staggering and somewhat unsettling statistic, but by virtue of those numbers it stands to reason that not everyone who owns a gun in this country is a fetishistic, hyper-aggressive paranoiac convinced it’s only a matter of time before that gun is the only thing that stops him from becoming a human entree for Leatherface’s Grandpa Sawyer or a ball-gagged rape toy in a sadist’s dungeon somewhere. There are plenty of people who own guns for sport, for enjoyment, or, yes, on the infinitesimal chance that in the largely civilized United States, circa 2014, they’ll have to defend themselves against a direct, violent threat.

I get the impression Joseph Nizzari isn’t one of those people.

According to his bio, Nizzari is the director of training operations for a firearms education company called Line of Fire, which is based out of Las Vegas. Remember that because it’ll be important in a second: Nizzari lives in Vegas. Not Fallujah or Mogadishu — Vegas. He trains average citizens on the proper and ostensibly responsible way to handle a weapon — which is undeniably admirable, particularly given that he has a reputation for professionalism — but it’s fair to assume that neither those average citizens nor Nizzari himself have settled down someplace where they’re ducking gunfire on their way out to the minivan every morning. And yet you’d never know that by reading Nizzari’s own words. Last week, the gun enthusiast website TheTruthAboutGuns.com published a piece written by him called “Why You Need to Home Carry… Even In the Shower.” The title kind of says it all, but in case you recently took a bullet to the head from a home invader and need to have it explained to you, Nizzari recommends that gun-owners keep their EDC weapons — “every day carry” — on them at all times when they’re in their homes. That means, yes, even in the shower — in a handy waterproof plastic gun box, right next to the shampoo caddy, I guess.

This about sums it up:

It is my solid belief that a handgun should be on one’s person from the moment they rise until the moment until they lay their head down and enter dreamland… One never knows what type of break-in will occur or where the point of entry will be.

Yes, one never knows when that break-in is going to come, but it’s probably going to come at some point — and having a gun in your nightstand or even several places conveniently throughout the house isn’t going to be enough.

Imagine a burglar coming in armed with a .25 Auto (or unarmed for that matter) and then confronting you with that loaded 870 or AR you keep next to your bed. And what if you come home while an intruder is already in your house and surprises you with one of your own guns? All I can say is, if you choose to store firearms this way, you definitely need to have a handgun on your person while you are at home… You need to do what you’re comfortable with. Personally, I always have a handgun on me with a spare magazine, a rear-activated light, and a folding knife.

Jesus. I’m sure parties at the Nizzari home are lovely.

It’s tough to imagine living with this kind of paranoia 24/7, with the fear and near-certainty that at any moment the suburban ranch-style home you share with your stick-figure-commemorated family can be stormed by a Bolivian hit squad like you’re Tony Montana. If you’ve managed to convince yourself that direct threats to your life exist around every corner and in every shadow and that you need to be ready to fend them off at all times — even in the shower — there’s a pretty good chance you’re way too twitchy for average people to be comfortable with the fact that you’re armed. It’s one thing to truly be in a position where your life is in danger on a regular basis — to be a cop, or a soldier, or to live in an area where violence is genuinely omnipresent — but to completely ignore statistics and logic and to create phantom peril and run through detailed scenarios in your head where you’re defending your homestead like its the Wild West makes you the dangerous one. It means that you no longer see a gun as a tool or even an unfortunate necessity, but rather as an integral part of your identity and authority. When you get to that point, you’re no longer a gun-owner or a gun enthusiast — you’re a gun-worshipper, a gun fetishist. And there should be no such thing because to be that shows a lack of respect and restraint when it comes to the awesome power you hold as someone carrying a firearm.

Nizzari goes on to offer up hypothetical arguments against carrying a weapon on you every minute of every day as well as his responses to them.

5. I have children and I’m worried about the gun coming out when I roll around on the floor when I play with them.

My view: If you lose your gun while playing with your children, imagine what will happen if you go hands-on with an attacker. I would review my holster choices in this case.

Or better yet, just holster your gun on the kid. The attacker will never expect that.

8. My spouse/significant other won’t let me.

My view: I’m not always sure how to address this one, as there are several underlying personal issues at play here. I will suggest to those who need ‘permission’ to carry a firearm at home to review home invasion stories and videos from around the country with their doubting parnters. (sic) Perhaps that will sway them to be more comfortable with home carry and get used to it as a way of life rather than some sort of paranoid voodoo. If there’s absolutely nothing you can do to persuade your significant other to accept the practice, you might consider pulling the ejection handle.

So to recap, scare the piss out of your wife by telling her about that woman who got raped in her home that one time and how it’s absolutely going to happen to her if she wants you to take off your sidearm once in a while. And if that doesn’t work, fuck it, you’ve gotta have priorities. That Glock 23 will keep you warm in bed at night and you can even stick your dick down the barrel of it when you’re feeling extra lonely.

Here’s where I once again go ahead and remind everyone that I own a gun. When I decided to make the cross-country drive alone from Florida to California, I availed myself of one of my ex-Navy SEAL father’s handguns — a Sig Compact .45 — and made the transfer legal. I did that because it was going to be me out on the road by myself for days and, yes, you never know what can happen. But I also knew almost beyond a doubt that I would never have to use it, nor would I want to. I still feel that way: Sure I have it, but it’s not like I’m ever going to need the thing because I live in an apartment near Studio City and don’t have a damn thing anybody would really want (other than, ironically, the gun). Yes, bad things can happen and random violence is possible, but statistically it’s incredibly unlikely, certainly to the point where I would feel the need to make sure I had my gun on me at all times.

What’s interesting, though, was the thinking of the guy behind the counter at the shooting range where I retrained before leaving South Florida — the wild alternate reality he had created in his head and was sure I would be experiencing once I got to L.A. At first glance, this person seemed completely normal: he was friendly, helpful, professional. But as soon as I explained to him why I was in that day and where I’d soon be heading, his demeanor changed. His brow furrowed and he cocked his head incredulously, as if I’d just asked him the way to a gay pride parade. He paused for a moment then leaned in and said, “You know, California’s a socialist state so they probably have restrictive gun laws, but you just keep this with you at all times even if it means arrest because when the riots start you’re gonna need it — and it’s better to be in trouble with the police than dead.” I just kind of nodded a couple of times, expressionless. “Good advice — thanks,” I responded. I left wondering where the hell they get this stuff. What makes someone believe that civilization, in one form or another, is always a hair’s breadth away from absolute collapse and a battle for survival in some post-apocalyptic wasteland that used to be America is nearly a sealed fate.

If you truly do believe that you’re always in danger then, sure, it makes sense to carry a gun with you when you sleep, eat, shower, play with your kids, have sex, and so on. But what would possibly make you believe that you’re always in danger? What misfiring synapses would make you think so irrationally? In his piece, Joseph Nizzari quotes someone who said, “Carrying a gun is not supposed to be comfortable; it’s supposed to be comforting.” What the hell is the matter with you if being able to kill someone in an instant while inside your home is “comforting” to you?

But maybe it really isn’t about comfort anyway. Maybe that’s just the bullshit story you tell yourself when your gun is so all-important to you that it’s almost literally a part of your body. Maybe it’s really about something else: power. The sense that you’re the baddest bad-ass in the land, ready to stop any threat, no matter how fearsome in your own imagination. That you’re locked, loaded, and ready to go down, as Nizzari says, in “a pile of empty brass” if necessary. If you think this way, you know what that makes you? Yeah, the last person on earth who should be armed.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, gun nuts are nothing but weak, paranoid, delusional, insecure cowards who want to fell like Rambo, so they pack a gun that is bigger than their you know what. Bunch of scared sissies who watch too many Clint Eastwood movies.

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

But it is just fine and dandy for politicians, celebs, and bankers who want gun permits to have them right?

superfly1977

Well, how many politicians , celebs, and bankers are paranoid cowards and wannabe tough guys? These people are high profile, and have a lot of attention on them, sometimes negative. They need protection. Now dale gribble from the trailerpark, who is an average shmoe, doesn’t need an arsenal to feel secure. What does he have that anyone wants, a pack of Marlboros? A 30 year old rusted out long bed pickup truck? But its always these types of braindead losers who are paranoid like hell, believing that “everbody’s out to get me!”.

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

You do know that people have no legal entitlement to police protection right? Read Warren v. District of Columbia.

“or, yes, on the infinitesimal chance that in the largely civilized United States, circa 2014, they’ll have to defend themselves against a direct, violent threat.”
And maybe other violent crime has fallen because of increased gun ownership? According to Gallup we went from under 70 million gun owners to over 90 million in the past 25 years

PavePusher

“…I availed myself of one of my ex-Navy SEAL father’s handguns — a Sig Compact .45 — and made the transfer legal.”
In Florida (if you both lived in the state), that would consist of your father handing you the gun. So….
A. What was your point?
B. What do you claim to have done to “(make it) legal”?

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

His father was never a SEAL.

PavePusher

“How Paranoid Do You Have To Be To Think You Need a Gun in the Shower?”
You don’t have to be paranoid at all. Just release your narcissistic bigotry long enough to recognize satire, you giant, blithering twat-waffle.

Joe Mama

According to Don Shipley, nobody with the name Pazienza or Page is in the UDT/Navy SEAL database. Which means the guy was not a SEAL.

I have a few simple questions. This supposed paranoia can also be applied to many other things. Does the fact that people have smoke detectors in their homes mean that they’re paranoid about fire? Statistically, how many home owners experience a house fire?
What about fire extinguishers? Same thing. Panoia?
How about alarm systems? How many people have “uninvited guests” in their homes?
Seems that his standard of measure can be applied to just about anything.

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

Don Shipley says that nobody named Pazienza is in the UDT/Navy SEAL database…

Davis Thompson

Here’s Joe “Shower Carry” Nizzari on his firearms experience.

“I spent 8 years in the National Guard reserve. I was also a Deputy Sheriff in Clark County. I currently hold several law enforcement instructor credentials, and I am also certified in most NRA civilian disciplines.”

He’s been an NRA certified instructor for 22 years.

But we’re supposed to take firearms advice (and listen to the psychobabble) of a blogger just because his dad was a Navy SEAL? Oh, and he owns a gun. Right.

All you folks commenting so negatively might actually want to learn a tiny little thing or two about the topic. You’re going up against someone who is a subject matter expert.

Or as he says in the original article that the evidence suggests few actually read:

My view: Preparedness is not to be confused with paranoia. Paranoia is based on fear; preparedness is based on avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.

And:

Aside from sleeping, showering is the most vulnerable time for home dwellers. When you’re in the shower the sound of the water will drown out almost any noise (including your barking dog). Your eyesight will not be the same as it normally is and your time in the rain locker can be timed by a surreptitious home invader.

It’s no secret that rapists have been known to stalk their female targets by observing the light in the window of their bathrooms at night. Rapists will note the length of time and how long the water stays running, giving them a perfect opportunity to enter the dwelling and lie in wait for the unsuspecting woman to exit the bathroom. Like rapists, burglars have also caught on to this technique, too. Bringing your gun into the shower isn’t crazy by any means. It just makes sense.

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

Apparently his dad may not have been a Navy SEAL…

Davis Thompson

You mean like the MDA gal that wasn’t spit on?

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

I know! It is shocking that a gun control advocate would lie!

http://www.gunsafetyblog.com HG Pro

His dad was never a SEAL. Nobody named Ralph Page or Ralph Pazienza is in the SEAL/UDT database.

Davis Thompson

Journalistic “mind reading” and long-distance, amateur psychoanalysis is the domain of the dishonest and the foolish.

brentondadams

What an utter load. I want my two minutes back.

Robert R Ramos

Chez must have a dildo in HIS shower.

Adam McInerney

The person who wrote this article is making mountains out of mole hills. His ultra paranoid perception of how one man’s choice to be prepared speaks of the authors lack of knowledge about firearms or the realities of living in the break-in capital better known Las Vegas, Neveda where home invasions are common and all too frequent. I can say that Mr. Nizzari is very well rounded and highly educated man who treats threats very seriously. He has taught thousands of students and his classes are highly sought after by persons of all ages, race, sexual orientation and ethnicity for proper and throughout firearms training. I happen to be a student of Line of Fire and consider Mr. Nizzari not only a excellent instructor, but a good friend. I know that a good number of his students have put his training and education to use, not only saving their own lives but others around them.

Johnny Kronaz

Completely misinterpreted the premise, as well as the entire point of gun ownership. As is typical of this type of person.
Now I sit back and wait for the mindless drones to assume I’m some right-wing nutjob. Because if you ain’t a lefty, you can only be a righty! Your false dichotomy amuses me.

Ashes Defacto

Don’t forget for an instant what this is actually about. The people who are purchasing firearms in large numbers are a shrinking demographic. For the business plan for the large firearms manufactures to work those same people have to be kept in a constant state of fear lest they close their wallets.

NameNotGiven

uhm no, according to Gallup we went form under 70 million to over 90 million admitted gun owners the past 25 years. the number of gun owners has been increasing. Household size getting much smaller means you see a drop or flat number of households creates an less valid state of a drop in households (just like we have increased dog ownership but a decrease in households with dogs) but the number of gun owners has gone way up.

And that is admitted gun owners with gallup noting more and more wont admit it to a pollster

Jeff Cramer

One of my FB friends for a long time keeps telling us to buy more ammo (he hasn’t done recently, but for months, it was filled with Buy More Ammo), you know when the Obama administration will try to buy more guns. When its not buying more ammo, its pictures of guns he posted. He’s told anyone who supports gun control to defriend him. He had a picture of his daughter holding a gun. Someone wrote, “That’s scary.” He responded, “What’s scary about it?” In other words, he’s the choir that Nizzari is preaching for.

I haven’t defriend him for a few reasons: 1. He and I go ways back though it was his brother I was best friends with. Its easy when you don’t know the guy, a lot harder when you do. 2. His paranoia and lust for guns is more amusing than annoying or offensive. I laugh instead. (I mean really, if you are getting ready for the eventual war with Obama, you probably shouldn’t mention your tactics on Facebook). 3. Plus, it helps to know what goes in the mindset of someone who you aren’t close in the political spectrum. You could say I study thoughts like a scientist studying a specimen. With people like this around, its no wonder there will be no gun control and the NRA and gun manufactures will be around for a while.

Lodge

Why do I have the strange feeling that this Nizzari wackaloon will very soon show up as a Republican (what else?) hopeful for this or that election?

Heh, I thought the same. Then I realized she would never have been able to get the gun out of the plastic case in time.

Steven Skelton

I keep a stash of food in the garage despite my access to the grocery store only being denied by the occasional snowstorm. There are emergency provisions in the back of my minivan despite it never once having left me stranded. I keep a couple hundred bucks in my wallet despite my debit card having never failed me.

And I never worry about what another man chooses to handle in the shower.

The problem with danger is that if we can’t always see it coming. Sometimes we miss very clear signs and sometimes it pops up out of nowhere. Being the son of an Eagle Scout, I was raised under the mantra of “be prepared.” I don’t see anything wrong with that.

For me personally, loaded guns about the house are more dangerous than the risk of intruder. I have small children and a cases of ADD.

But not knowing what is best for other’s lives, I don’t pass judgment on what they do to defend themselves. As long as I don’t surprise that fella in the shower, his sidearm is no threat to me.

Sabyen91

People with this type of mentality ARE a threat. They seem to be over-aggressive and in perpetual fight or flight mode. Someone like that carrying a gun all the time…THAT is the scary thing.

Steven Skelton

Stay out of his shower and you should be just fine.

Sabyen91

Whew. At least I have an excuse now. :)

Someone who carries in his bathroom is carrying everywhere.

Davis Thompson

No, what’s scary is that you feel you are capable of judging the mental competence of a man who’s been a firearms instructor for 22 years based on an extremely poorly written article.

Tell me, did you even read the original piece by Mr. Nizzari? Or did you just swallow whole the pap fed to you?

aynwrong

Dreamland?
What if he gets mugged by Freddy Krueger?

D_C_Wilson

Really. Why make yourself vulnerable while you’re sleeping? Keep your holster strapped to your PJs with your fingers wrapped around the grip. Better yet, don’t sleep! That’s just what THEY want you to do.

Christopher Foxx

What the hell is the matter with you if being able to kill someone in an instant while inside your home is “comforting” to you?

If he was really wanted to make sure he was safe at home, if that truly was what he wanted, he’d make sure the home was secure. Surveillance system so nobody could approach without him knowing about it. Strong doors and secure windows (bulletproof glass?) so that nobody could force their way in. Secured phone line with the local police on speed dial. And, I suppose, some guns (unloaded in a secure gun safe, no doubt, being as he’s so safety conscious) so that should the astounding happen and someone manage to breach his fortress he could then defend himself.

But with all those measure to stop intruders he’d have loads of time to retrieve his guns from wherever he keeps them. He wouldn’t have to carry a gun all the time. And that, the having togetting to carry his guns every moment of the day is what he is really interested in.

Security is just his “legitimate sounding” excuse to indulge his fetish and insecurity.

Badgerite

I believe the operative word in one of his rants was what if an intruder “surprises” you. When I think of this all I can see is Pistorius in the dock for killing his girlfriend ( the ‘intruder’) and Adam Lanza’s mother.

feloniousgrammar

Yeah, it should be pretty obvious that poor people are more likely to be robbed or attacked at home because their home security is a joke. I could kick in any of the doors in any house or apartment I’ve ever lived in. An ounce of prevention…

As a small, but strong women I’ve walked alone, day and night, all over the U.S. and in three other countries. The only times I had to confront a violent person was after one or two women I was walking with felt that “safety in numbers” meant that they could talk any way to a man on the street in safety. It was safety in felonious grammar. Never do anything to escalate the threat of a violent response. So, twice, I’ve had to talk down aggressive men, and those were the only times.

I’ve fought off a rapist in my home with a pair of sewing scissors. That was the only time I had to fight a man to save myself. I can’t discount luck as a factor, but neither is there good evident that we live in omnipresent danger from criminals that makes it prudent to be armed at all times.

Like you say Christopher, home security shouldn’t start and end with a gun and those guns can easily become a threat to others.

Christopher Foxx

home security shouldn’t start and end with a gun and those guns can easily become a threat to others.

Exactly so. There has never been a case of someone getting killed with their own alarm system. When it comes to home defense, those who go to a gun first aren’t really interested in home defense. Their interested in feeling macho.

NameNotGiven

homes of armed non criminals are 20% safer than unarmed homes

Ann Lopez

What kind of logic is this?

You yourself have had two near violent encounters on the street (which you were thankfully able to talk your way out of, but just as easily might not have been able to).
And a violent, forcible rape attempt in your own home, which you were able to fend off because of a weapon.
But wanting to have a defensive weapon within reach, even at home, makes one a paranoid, delusional “gun nut”?

Is it the idea that these events are really so rare? Because (as your personal experience indicates) they aren’t. According the DOJ there are a little over 1 million home invasion, each year in the U.S. (1,036,000 to be exact, plus 2.6 million burglaries of unoccupied residences).
By comparison, fire departments resond to about 384,000 home fires annually. No stats on how many were occupied at the time.

Taking into account the average number of households during period those statistics were compiled (roughly 108,000,000) you have about a 1 in 100 chance every year of being the victim of home invasion, even worse in some areas. This is to say nothing of the violence one might encounter outside one’s home.
But I think it’s more than just a false sense of security that drives the anti-gun sentiment. From my experience, many ‘sensible gun control’ supporters (even the ones who own guns) simply dislike/fear the idea of (legal) guns in the hands of others. But that fear, much like the idea that one is always safe in one’s home, is totally unfounded.
As someone pointed out above, concealed carry license holders are exceptionally law-abiding. They are several times less likely than non concealed carry licensees to commit any type of crime, even crimes with guns. And are 3x less likely to commit murder than even sworn law enforcement officers.

So, while a guy like Nizzari (whose business is to sell people defensive training, afterall) definitely comes off as an alarmist, he’s still FAR more realistic about both the likelihood of being the target of violence AND the unlikelihood of something bad happening to, or because of, legal gun owners.
Cliffs:
-Violent crime happens way more iften than this comment and the article seem to suggest.
-The chances of needing to protect yourself in your own home are at least 3x higher than the chance you’ll ever need a fire extinguisher.
-The delusional people here are the ones who think that legal gun owners (no matter how “paranoid”) are somehow more dangerous than the very real threat of criminals intent on/willing to harm you.

Christopher Foxx

but to completely ignore statistics and logic and to create phantom peril and run through detailed scenarios in your head where you’re defending your homestead like its the Wild West makes you the dangerous one.

Indeed. When someone expects danger lurking around every corner, they will shoot first, and realize it’s their child up for a late night glass of water second.

Aaron Litz

Last weekend I went out to my dad’s house with my brother, and I ended up shooting his AR-15 for the first time. It was a nice smooth gun. I used to a really good shot, but that day it was so cold I couldn’t stop shaking and I couldn’t get near the can we were using as a target. I’m going back up when it’s warmer to try some more when my knees won’t be wobbling so much. Someone asked him if he would want one that shot full auto and my dad laughed derisively and said “Why, so I can waste ammo?”

My dad owns several guns. He uses them for hunting, which is not just for sport for him; it is a valuable source of meat for people like us who live in a rural area and don’t have much money. We live in central Pennsylvania, surrounded by forests on all sides, in amongst the trees. Deer and other animals walk by regularly. He also shoots for fun, at inanimate targets. He doesn’t even think of using the guns for shooting people or as “home defense” or whatever. When not in use the guns are put up, and the ammunition is locked away.

If my dad heard this guy talking about wearing a gun in the shower he would laugh in his face and call him a paranoid goon, and if he heard him talking about wearing a gun while playing around on the floor with kids(!) I do believe he would punch him in the face.

Jason E

Probably not a good idea to call that guy a goon! At least not to his face, he may decide to stand his ground!

Jeff Cramer

Yeah, I was talking about my FB friend, earlier in a different post who represents the choir that Nizzari is preaching. These type of people are paranoid that they think anyone who isn’t with them is against them. (Notice he said leave your spouse if they don’t agree with you.) It is best to say nothing to them. By saying nothing, you’re aren’t encouraging them to keep up this rant and you aren’t setting them off by accident. Someone with that mindset is likely to pull a George Zimmerman on you.

Christopher Foxx

Imagine a burglar coming in armed with a .25 Auto (or unarmed for that matter) and then confronting you with that loaded 870 or AR you keep next to your bed. And what if you come home while an intruder is already in your house and surprises you with one of your own guns?

Imagine if you didn’t have a gun in the house for that intruder to use?

Davis Thompson

If you’d taken two minutes to read Nizzari’s article you would understand that he was writing against the notion of a “loaded gun in every room.” His entire point is don’t have readily access able firearms stashed around the house where bad guys (or kids) could get their hands on it. Keep it on you so it’s under your control at all times.

I spotted a post about this article on a favored gun website. I then came over here and read every word Mr. Pazienza had to say. Then I went back and read Mr. Nizzari’s entire article. I did all this before commenting. You should try it.

Christopher Foxx

Reading is good. Comprehending is better. You should try it.

Davis Thompson

From the original article where he debunks arguments against home carry. Argument number 9 is:

9. I have loaded guns in every room in my house, therefore, I don’t need the hassle of carrying one on me.

My view: That may work well for those who haven’t experienced a break in, but for me, I feel that having loaded guns placed all over my house increases my chances of arming (or further arming) an attacker. Imagine a burglar coming in armed with a .25 Auto (or unarmed for that matter) and then confronting you with that loaded 870 or AR you keep next to your bed. And what if you come home while an intruder is already in your house and surprises you with one of your own guns? All I can say is, if you choose to store firearms this way, you definitely need to have a handgun on your person while you are at home.

He’s explaining why it’s a bad idea to have loaded guns all over the house. And if you’re foolish enough to do so, then you should make sure you have on on you.

Yes, I tried it. And liked it.

Christopher Foxx

Hmmm, I’m thinkin’ I may have to work on my comprehension, or at least ease up on the multi-tasking and focus a bit better. I may have missed something.

Yeah, loaded guns all over the house to improve security is a really stupid circular idea. And if you have a gun on you (to compensate for having loaded guns all over the house), then why do you need loaded guns all over the house?

Davis Thompson

You’ve made Nizarri’s point. He’s against loaded guns all over the house. (As am I, as is the NRA and the NSSF.)

In the article, Nizarri was promoting home carry, which is having a gun holstered on your hip while you’re at home. Nizarri then listing common objections to home carry he’s heard from his students.

#9 was the concept that having loaded guns all over the house is a valid substitute for home carry.

Nizarri then explains how poor an idea it is to have loaded guns all over the house.

He further explains that if you have loaded guns all over the house, you then need to have one on you as well in the event a bad guy gains control of one of your guns.

Thus the concept of loaded guns all over the house to avoid home carry negates itself.

Thus, don’t have loaded guns all over the house, instead, have one on your hip. That’s the whole point of home carry. The gun is on you, not on top of
the refrigerator, not under the sink. You know where it is and who has
control of it at every moment.

If you speak to people who are knowledgeable on the subject of firearm safety, they will tell you that any firearm they or a trusted individual are not in control of needs to be locked away.

When you go to sleep, you lock it in a quick access safe next to the bed.

NameNotGiven

yet Christopher you showed you did not read it

Christopher Foxx

I did read it. But I’ll admit that when someone comes out of the wood work to attack a conversation that ended over two months ago, I don’t always go back and re-read everything.

Brutlyhonest

For a bunch of self-purported tough guys, these people sure are scared of everything.

That River Gal

Bingo!

Jason E

Paranoia is now an “alternative lifestyle”. Crime has been falling for 30 years now, but you would never know it. The American dream is now a gruesome nightmare.

feloniousgrammar

Crime pays very well when you’re selling guns.

Davis Thompson

Who’s screaming about a “violence epidemic?” Why, none other than Shannon Watts of Mom’s Demand.

Firearm enthusiasts love to point out the dropping crime rate. We also love to point to the murder rate in the 1960s, lower than today, before most gun control, when you could order a rifle from a catalog and have it mailed to your house.

ranger11

Yeah, I live in Florida and I had a conversation with a guy like that in a convenience store. All I said was that I going to move closer to the city. He also said that I had to watch out for police helicopters in the sky. Florida is like a paranoid 70’s political thriller. “Three Days of the Condor” crossed with “Parallax View”.

aceshigh

Wow, are you serious? That’s pathetic, and scary.

D_C_Wilson

It’s odd that Chez’s friend in South Florida is so paranoid about California. I remember the 80s when Miami was considered the murder capital of the country and South Florida had practically invented carjacking. SNL even did a skit where Phil Hartman played Michael Eisner, desperately trying to convince people that it was safe to go to Disneyworld because Orlando was “all the way in North Florida”.

Chez’s friend probably would have been insulted had anyone expressed fears about traveling to South Florida, but it wasn’t that long ago when people did just that.

Chez Pazienza

Here’s where I jump in. It’s classic reverse reasoning, which is common among some gun enthusiasts: it’s more dangerous and scary in a place where they tightly control firearms than it is in a place full of them, even if that place is fucking terrifying. Miami indeed was exactly that during the 80s, when I was growing up, and then again for a period in the early 90s (but really mostly if you were a tourist driving out of the airport with a big “jack me” sign on the back of your rental car).

My dad was a cop in Miami in the early 80s when parts of the place were literally a war zone. Drug dealers armed with Mac 10s were wasting each other in the street, killing entire families, shooting up crowded shopping malls. The police actually had a refrigerated truck they’d drive around to pick up the bodies. THAT was dangerous, and even then, given that I lived in a decent area, I wasn’t overly scared. But maybe if you live in a situation like that it’s worth owning a gun and going through extensive training with a guy like Joe Nizzari. These days, though, especially if — as he says — you live in some gated community and your life is almost completely removed from the threat of constant or random violence, believing that there’s a good chance you might become a victim of it is a little unhinged.

He can do whatever the hell he wants. It’s his life. My concern is that there’s a culture which says that that gun is a necessary lifeline, a part of your very existence and identity. And if you train and train and immerse yourself completely in that culture, despite not really needing to, and begin to believe you’re ready for anything, you’re psychologically going to imagine, fantasize about, and maybe even seek out situations where you get to be the hero who saves the day. Because you’re gonna want to use that gun and that training. And as Zoë says in ‘Serenity,’ ‘You know what the definition of a hero is? Somebody who gets other people killed.’

ssj

Nice insertion of Serenity. Do you get extra points for that?

feloniousgrammar

And studies have shown that a person carrying a gun is more likely to “see” a gun, even when they’re looking at a phone, a wallet, or a submarine sandwich.

Davis Thompson

And “studies” (20 of them to date with over 60,000 regressions) demonstrate a statistically significant linkage between concealed carry and lower crime rates.

Also, since conceal carry permit holders are demonstrably less likely to commit murder than the average citizen, you are statistically more dangerous than a person with a CCW permit. Just saying.

NameNotGiven

false. concealed carry permit holders commit violent crime with and without their guns at 1/4 the rate of non gun owners

Davis Thompson

Ah, yes, let’s craft public policy based on what Zoe says.

PavePusher

If you are trying to base public policy on fictional entertainment, you’ve already lost.
Have a great life.

NameNotGiven

“When I decided to make the cross-country drive alone from Florida to California, I availed myself of one of my ex-Navy SEAL father’s handguns — a Sig Compact .45 — and made the transfer legal”
You do realize your lie about your dad being a Seal is noted? and compact sig 45 20 years ago? sure.

aceshigh

This is beyond twisted. It really makes me wonder, as a liberal, if this country is beyond hope…because there are MILLIONS of people in America with the same mindset.

And it’s not just gun insanity. It’s the fact that Americans could conceivably hand the Senate over to the GOP in November…to me, there’s a direct line between the kind of irrational paranoia Chez describes above, and the ignorant, know-nothing masochism necessary to put a feral, borderline-fascist Republican Party in control of the Senate going into Obama’s final two years in office.

Jesus wept.

feloniousgrammar

Most Americans, I think, want reasonable gun control. The voices of gun-nuts are amplified by big dollars. The gun nuts are like people who really believe that no matter how dirty something is you just have to spray on Brand X Cleaner and wipe it off. They’re victims of marketing.

The same can be said about people who argue passionately about which military jet is best while appearing to be completely unaware that all their judgments are based of brochures and their glib little theories about modern warfare, and not how the planes actually perform.

Marketing is a very powerful industry that can distort perception to the degree that it can disarm reason with cult-like influence and outcomes.

Davis Thompson

The “big money” notion is provable disinformation. Mayor Bloomberg just dropped 50 million into gun control, on top of all the other millions he and George Soros have already spent pushing gun control. (And no, they have the absolute right to do so. Not arguing that.) Gun rights advocates were outspent in the Colorado recalls, yet prevailed. Why?

The NRA (as well as the GOA, NAGR, SAF, JPFO and GRAA) are so powerful because between them they boast 7 to 10 million, dues paying members. Compare that to the memberships of other laudable civil rights organizations such as Amnesty International (2 million) NOW (half a million) and the NAACP (half a million.)

Gun-rights advocates are passionate enough about the issue that when gun control is on the table, they turn out to march, e-mail, call, and donate even more money than their yearly dues. When we win (and we don’t always win, especially in places like New York) it’s because we worked for it.

That, my friend, is called representative government in action.

NameNotGiven

Go look at gallup. LESS than 1/3 (and falling) of Americans want more gun .
According pew, over 94% of those who do want more gun control think gun murder is up.
Gun control is movement of paranoids